I was swimming last night (Swimming chum reader btw, 100 lengths in an hour, which I was pleased with - This in the context of swimming 90 lengths the other night and going home where mrs househusbandnot looked up from the sofa, holding out her glass for a g and t refill, and said "You are not taking your swimming seriously enough" which hurt. [Hey lady, those oversized clown's shoes I wear while swimming help me to go faster.]) and this young guy kept on getting in the way and stopping and walking in the lengths lane. And I suggested to him that he maybe swim in a straight line, and he got out of the pool and sulked on a lounger by the pool. This made me feel bad, but it also got me thinking about how much younger than me he was, which got me thinking about how much I knew when I was his age (maybe 20), and when (if?) I had/did get to a stage of actually knowing anything...about anything. I decided around 35 was when I actually started to manage to look at the world with anything other than a completely self-validating/in my own head/vacuum. (mrs hhn may not have agreed with this assessment when she got home last night to find me playing Xbox with an empty packet of biscuits on the sofa next to me.)
I was thinking more about this when I was walking home. And stopping to take a call, I overheard three students from our local art school (it is one of those ones you pay to go to, so it's just full of rich nobbers) talking about having kids. And one of them said "I just don't think that it would be fair on a woman if I was sitting in my studio all day, because that's what I will do, I NEED to paint, and she would be having to look after our children. I know Caravaggio had 15 children, but I just don't think I could do it." Fighting back the urge to force a plastic bag over this loser's head and dropping him in The Thames, I made my way home, validated in my thinking on young people, and my emerging maturity and clarity of vision on this world.
In related overhear news, I overheard some bloke at the Steve Earle gig the other night saying "I even had breakfast with Nancy Sinatra once". In related music news, the Brits was terribly MOR wasn't it? And I'm sorry, but watching Macca whistle and play the mandolin is neither music nor entertainment. Good duck noises from the Arctic Monkeys though.
Incidentally, re the tumbleweed comments, to quote Howard Devoto "It is harder than it looks". And I'm kinda busy - in a very unhousehusbandnot manner - at the moment. I even have a meeting on a Friday tomorrow, which is usually unheard of. After all this industry, you will be glad to hear that I am having lunch with Styx tomorrow afternoon. If you see two old gits in a restaurant tomorrow laughing at young people, and whistling Magazine tunes, you will have chanced upon entirely paintable scene of Styx and hhn at play.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Madam B here,
What kind of posh pool do yuo go to that has loungers. For goodness sake. It must be posh, mine doesn't even have a floom (which I admit made my eyes twinkle when I first heard the word). If it is so posh, why does it have teenagers of all things? Can't you pack them off to the local publicv baths?
PS - Enjoy the lunch with Styx - will you be using your real teeth or borrowed
Post a Comment